(no subject)

[kippurbird]

Gay marriage being made legal yesterday reminded me of a family member.

His name was "Cousin Charlie" and he was in my grandfather's generation. My mom knew him when she was little and loved him dearly. Whenever he would come over, my grandfather would run around going "Where's my bathrobe! Where's my bathrobe! Charlie's coming over!" and my bubbie would roll her eyes at this.

Charlie, my mom says, committed suicide.

With this law having passed, I started to wonder what it would have been like for him, if he lived now. Or didn't kill himself.

I honestly don't know.

But I've been thinking about it.

Comments

[subieko.livejournal.com]

I don't know...I think it's more that they picture God as very, very authoritarian and strict. Some people have trouble with the idea of a loving, forgiving God, because it can seem so contrary to what humans think is right.

[rurounitriv.livejournal.com]

In a lot of cases, it seems the reason that they're having so much trouble comprehending that loving and forgiving God is because they themselves are so unsettled at the idea that the world is not black and white - good and evil aren't always so easy to distinguish as they'd like. They want God to be the Ultimate Enforcer, to smite anyone who breaks The Rules - because if they know what The Rules are, then they can just obey those and they're safe. The concept of a universe which isn't able to be locked into those little mental categories terrifies them. I know that my mom's idea of the ultimate argument against my not choosing to be Christian is, "What if you're wrong?"

(And then there's the ones who give Christianity a bad name because they're hatemongers hiding behind a Bible. Those guys make me want to lock 'em in a room with a Islamic terrorist and let 'em duke it out. As far as I'm concerned, the only difference between that sort is which god's name they're disgracing.)

[subieko.livejournal.com]

Yes, I think you're right. For a lot of people, I think it can be frightening to see things that aren't simple, and situations where maybe there IS no right answer, or to think 'what if I'm wrong?' It's easier to live in a simplified, black-and-white world, so I think that people sometimes attack anything that might push them out of that world because of fear.

And yeah, every religion has people who may claim to practice it, but I only see someone twisting the religion to their own ends. That just makes me angry, no matter what religion they claim to follow.

[rurounitriv.livejournal.com]

Personally, my theory is that if there is a Satan, he's behind the folks like Pat Robertson and the Westboro fanatics, and it's his way of discrediting Jesus' teachings. Because if people actually treated each other the way that Jesus treated people, there'd be a hell of a lot less pain, hate and misery than there is now.